by Elaine Chong
I took the cup from her shaking hand and placed it on the table next to me. “For goodness sake sit down before you fall down.”
She slumped onto the end of the bed, but it was clearly an effort for her to sit unsupported, so I ordered her to change places with me. Reluctantly, she agreed.
When she’d settled herself, I said, “So what is it then? What do you want to talk to me about?”
She immediately looked away.
I studied her profile. The soft light of the pink-curtained room lent her face an almost healthy glow from this position, but I knew it was an illusion because the cancer growing inside her had affected every cell in her body. She was dying from the inside out. Only her beautiful blue eyes had survived this desolation and they now seemed to shine with a bright, feverish light.
I waited.
At last she turned to me. “I have to tell you these things, Lenora, because there’s no one else that I can trust. I have to tell you because I owe you the truth. Please don’t think badly of me. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for a reason.”
And then she began.
I sat still and listened. I sat still and listened even when I wanted to stand up and walk out of the room. I sat still and listened even when I wanted to stand up, walk out of the room, pour myself a large glass of brandy, turn on the radio, turn the music up to full volume and forget that Aggie had ever been my friend.
When she stopped speaking, a dreadful silence filled the room.
“Please say something,” she whispered.
“I don’t really know what to say, Aggie. You’ve just told me that you gave your father an overdose and allowed your mother to drown in the bath.”
“You make it sound like I murdered them. It wasn’t like that.”
“But your father wasn’t dying, Aggie! He’d had a stroke, but he wasn’t dying. You can’t even justify it by calling it euthanasia. You put it in the chocolate blancmange, so that he wouldn’t know, and your mother would get the blame if it came to light.”
Her expression changed from anxious pleading to one of childish vexation. “It was a kind of euthanasia! You don’t realise how unhappy he was. He hated having to rely on my mother for everything. And I mean everything, Lenora. I know he wanted to die!”
“What about your mother? Did she want to die?”
Aggie’s tone is one of pained exasperation when she replies. “She’d already had a heart attack when I found her in the bath. I didn’t do that!”
“But you left her in the bath. You didn’t try to help her. That’s the point.”
“She was cursing me, Lenora! Calling me terrible names. Telling me that I was stupid and useless when I know I’ve spent my whole life trying to please her; knowing that whatever I did would never be good enough. I had to walk out of the room before I lost my temper and said things, which I knew she’d never forgive.”
I could see in her face that she wasn’t about to admit that what she’d done had been anything less than completely justifiable, so I pointed out to her, “You lied about what happened, Aggie. You knew that leaving her in the bath was wrong.”
“I know I lied to you when you came to the house, but I told you the truth afterwards, and I told the truth to the police.”
“Really? Did you tell them that you left her to drown?”
“I didn’t leave her to drown. Not really.”
“Did … you … tell … them?”
With her face pushed into the pillow, Aggie’s skin now appeared the same colour as the bed linen – chalk white. “No,” she said.
I rose unsteadily to my feet; walked with slow, deliberate steps to the bedroom door but my mind was racing. I had to ask her: I had to know if she’d used the same twisted logic to remove my husband from my life. “What you did to George, it wasn’t an accident with the car, was it?” She refused to answer me, but in my heart I knew.
I left her in the bed – I didn’t want to hear any more. When I went back to the bedroom to get dressed some while later, she’d returned to her own room. I put my head round the door, I don’t remember what I planned to say to her, but she was sleeping. She looked quite peaceful and I think she was because she’d unburdened herself to me and now the burden was mine.
Julia
As soon as Richard has reassured himself that our mother is still resting in her room, he drags me into the kitchen and closes the door. I tell him he needs to buy green tea when he goes shopping and he tells me I can take care of the shopping myself while I’m here. When I begin to argue with him, he orders me to sit down because he says he has something to tell me and I’ll probably need more than a cup of green tea afterwards.
The ‘something’ he has to tell me is short and to the point, but not lacking in detail: family photographs mysteriously removed from the walls, messages written by an unseen hand in lipstick on the mirror, perfume bottles, glimpses of a red dress, and the final coup d’état: a shove which sends our mother tumbling down the stairs.
“Are you trying to tell me that our mother is being haunted by Agnes Bagshot?” I ask him. “Seriously?”
“No, of course I don’t think that!” he exclaims. “But she does. I think there’s a much more mundane explanation – at least for some of it.”
“Go on.”
He tells me about the missing whiskey and broken crystal decanter in our mother’s bedroom; about garage doors left unsecured and secret trysts. He tells me he’s certain that Maggie is responsible. “It’s the only explanation I can think of,” he says. “We already know she comes and goes as she pleases.”
“Why would she use our house to meet up with men? Doesn’t she have a home of her own?”
“Perhaps she’s married and doesn’t want her husband to know what she’s up to,” he says. “Maybe the boyfriend is married as well and they think if they meet here, nobody will find out. Desperate people do desperate things.”
If this last remark is a nod to my own situation then the allusion isn’t lost on me. “It doesn’t explain everything though, does it?” I say. “Why would someone write ‘Je Reviens’ on the mirror?”
“Maybe it was a message,” he suggests with a weary sigh. “Doesn’t it mean, ‘I will return’?”
He slumps in the chair opposite me and I notice for the first time since I arrived that an air of utter exhaustion pervades every movement, every word he utters. Then I remember that he’s been juggling work and hospital visits for nearly two weeks without a break, and I’m briefly seized by a feeling of remorse, because I could have done more, and I wouldn’t.
On the other hand, I have drawn the short straw by moving in with our mother when the hinges of her good sense and reasoning are clearly hanging off, though Richard isn’t much better if he’s willing to believe our mother’s cleaner is using Hillcrest as a secret love nest. I tell him, “Isn’t the more mundane explanation that Mummy is losing the plot? She could have been unwell for a long time and we just didn’t realise. Perhaps she’d been coping well but Aggie’s death acted as the catalyst for her condition to deteriorate suddenly.”
“It’s possible we’re both right,” he says. “All that weird stuff Mum told me obviously happened before she went into hospital, but the house has been empty for two weeks. Maggie could have seized the opportunity to make use of it. I know someone calling herself Sarah Oakley was phoning the ward and asking about Mum. That could have been Maggie.”
“You’re going to have to speak to the woman,” I tell him. “Have you got a telephone number or an address for this Hutton Home Help?”
“I’m going to the office when I leave here,” he says.
We spend the next hour arguing about my attempts to track down Lena Bartok and have our father’s last will and testament declared null and void. He thinks I should accept the situation and get on with my life. I’m almost tempted to tell him that my life has just been thrown into turmoil by the arrival of my cuckolded husband, though I’m still hoping against hope that Colin might change his mind about leavi
ng me while my finances are still in a state of flux and uncertainty.
I think about it some more after Richard has left and I realise that I’m actually being hopelessly optimistic. Even if Colin were to accept that the affair with Jian is over, I know he isn’t going to change his mind about leaving Singapore and that’s the real game changer. If Colin leaves, how can I stay?
Richard
As I pull out of the drive at Hillcrest, I have the strangest sensation that I’m being watched. I know it isn’t Julia because she closed the door in my face when I told her that she needs to deal with the rejection she feels at being left out of our father’s will. And it isn’t my mother because I checked on her before I left, and she was still sleeping.
Ever since my father kicked me out, I’ve never really felt welcome at the house so what I’m sensing is possibly linked to that unpleasant memory. Still, it troubles me because, for every word I’ve spoken against the notion of Aggie as a restless spirit roving our home, I can’t forget the sight of the woman in the red dress at Julia’s bedroom window. I know what I saw.
For everyone’s peace of mind, I must confront Maggie.
It doesn’t take me long to locate the office of Hutton Home Help. It’s situated above a charity shop a short walk from the railway station. The entrance door has a panel of clear glass and through it I can see Maggie speaking to someone on the phone. In a pink blouse and tailored, black skirt, she looks rather different from the Maggie who cleans my mother’s house on a Monday morning.
I tap on the glass then walk straight in. She doesn’t look surprised to see me and she doesn’t smile but she’s probably been waiting for me to contact her and knows that our conversation isn’t going to be a friendly one.
When she finishes the call, she invites me to sit down.
“I expect you know why I’m here,” I say.
“Yes. Jackie told me you were at the house.” Maggie’s bright blue eyes look steadily into mine. Her gaze doesn’t waver. “I would’ve cleaned up the mess myself if I’d been free. I didn’t think Mrs Oakley would mind if I sent someone else under the circumstances. I’ve had to do it before.”
“What exactly are the circumstances?” I ask her, expecting a flush of embarrassment to match the colour of her blouse, but her self-assurance doesn’t falter for a single second. Instead she assumes an air of bewilderment.
“I don’t want to seem rude, Mr Oakley, but I’m not responsible for that ... that incident.” She emphasizes the word ‘I’ loudly and emphatically and I suddenly realise that the person being accused of breaking the crystal whiskey decanter is probably me. She goes on, “I knew Mrs Oakley could soon be discharged from hospital and I wanted to make sure that everything was cleaned up properly.”
“You think I did this?”
She shrugs. “You, or your sister. It’s not my place to ask questions about how it happened.”
I feel myself bristle in response to this accusation. “To my knowledge there are only four people with a key to the house,” I say. “One of those was in hospital with a fractured hip, and I know it wasn’t me or my sister so that only leaves you.”
“Me? That’s ridiculous! Why would I be drinking whiskey in your mother’s bedroom?” She pushes back her chair, rises quickly to her feet and walks over to the window looking out onto the busy road in front of the building. She appears to be watching the traffic with some interest, but if I were her and had been caught out, I’d be racking my brain for an alternative explanation and I’m certain she’s doing the same. When she turns back to the room, she asks me, “Are you sure no one else has a key? I know Mrs Oakley’s friend, Agnes, had a key. It’s possible someone else does. Maybe a neighbour? My neighbour keeps a spare key to my house in case I get locked out.”
It’s an explanation of sorts, but no more believable than the one I’ve already offered her. “Look, Maggie,” I say to her, “you have to understand why I’m concerned.”
“I do understand,” she says at once. “Mrs Oakley’s been with Hutton Home Help for a long time. We wouldn’t usually hold a key, you know, but it’s what she wanted. Sometimes I’ve had to send someone else, but all of our employees have a Criminal Records Bureau check.”
“If you keep a key then anyone working for you could get hold of it then,” I argue.
She shakes her head. “The key’s kept in the safe.” She walks stiffly and self-consciously back to the desk, resumes her seat and addresses me directly in a clear confident voice. “I’ve been working for this company for more than twelve years, Mr Oakley. I started as a cleaner and now I manage it. I’ve got a few favourite customers – people who’ve been kind to me – so I still help them out if I can because I know having a stranger in your home isn’t very nice. Your mother is one of those people. I’d never take advantage of her good nature.”
All the while she speaks, she keeps her blue eyes trained on mine. If she’s lying, then it’s a mesmerizing performance, because sincerity shines through. I find I want to believe her, if only because she’s been a friend of sorts to my mother for all of those twelve years and I don’t like to think that my mother’s trust has been misplaced. Still…
“I’m glad you’ve come here today,” she continues. “I’ve wanted to speak to you about your mother for some time. I’m really worried about her.”
“She told me she’d been confiding some of her worries in you.”
She nods. “Things have been hard for her since her friend, Agnes, died. We’ve talked about it and I’ve tried to help her but...” She shrugs and shakes her head.
“She told me.”
“Then you know she thinks that lots of strange things have been happening?”
“She told me about that as well. It’s made her quite fearful. I don’t think she really wanted to come home.”
“I’m so sorry,” Maggie says, and she looks genuinely sympathetic. “It can difficult … in this line of work you get to know people quite well. Sometimes you’re the first person to notice something has changed, if they live on their own.”
“Are you saying you’ve noticed something wrong with my mother?”
She looks away, places her hand over her heart. I feel like I can hear her breathing quicken but perhaps it’s just a reflection of my own fears because this is what I’ve been waiting to hear: that my mother probably has dementia and Maggie knows because in Maggie’s line of work she gets to know people quite well, who live by themselves.
She turns back to me. “Obviously this is just my … my impression. I think some of the things she believes happened… Well, she just got confused. Things like photographs get moved when I clean, and I think she forgets. I wonder… Maybe she just wants to see her friend then imagination does the rest?”
She stands up and I assume it’s a signal that the interview is over. She says, “If you want to end the contract with Hutton Home Help then you need to let me know soon. But please don’t do anything until you’ve made some other arrangement.”
I thank her for her time and tell her I’ll speak to my mother first before any decision is made. She nods and smiles but she looks relieved when I head for the door. At the last moment, I remember the garage doors.
“There’s one last thing,” I say. “When I was at the house this morning, I noticed that the garage doors had been left unlocked and I couldn’t work out why that would happen because you have no reason to go into the garage. It’s just that … well, anyone could get in and they wouldn’t even need a key.”
Once again, her hand flies to her chest. “I’m so sorry, Mr Oakley. I had no idea…”
At first glance, she looks genuinely shocked, but there’s something else: it’s the same expression I saw on her face that day after my mother’s fall. It’s as though she knew something had happened at the house – something that troubled her. I realise I still don’t trust her.
Lenora
I can’t, won’t open my eyes. I know Aggie is in the bedroom with me. I try to calm my shatte
red nerves by slow, deep breathing, but now I can smell her perfume. The light, floral scent of Je Reviens has become her signature. It proves that she’s here, but why are you here Aggie?
Behind my closed lids I see a shadow pass in front of the curtains: it’s just a flicker of movement against the pink fabric lit by bright morning light. My heart is racing, and my mouth is drier than a piece of driftwood. When I feel her chill breath on my face, I can’t contain my fear any longer.
It’s an odd experience hearing your own scream: it sounds like the panic-stricken voice of a stranger. No words just noise, but there are no words to describe blood-curdling terror.
Julia bursts in. “What’s happened?” She casts her eyes frantically about the room, but with my eyes now open wide, I can see that there’s no one here except the two of us.
I still can’t speak even though I’m hugely relieved it’s just her standing beside me. I point to the glass of water on the table next to the bed.
She presses the edge of the glass to my lips, pours some of the water into my mouth but most of it trickles down my chin. “You scared the life out of me,” she says.
I let the water soothe my parched mouth, but my voice still croaks when I find it. “Aggie was here. In this room.”
Julia sinks onto the bed and pats my hand. “You were dreaming,” she says.
“I don’t think so. When I woke up, I could smell her perfume.”
Julia lifts her head and sniffs. “I can smell something a bit like perfume, but I think it’s just fabric conditioner on the bedsheets.”
“I saw her!”
“You had your eyes closed when I came into the room.”
“I felt her breath on my face.”
Julia’s eyes narrow and she regards me calmly. “How is that possible?” she asks. “She doesn’t have lungs. She’s dead.”
“I don’t know how any of it’s possible,” I declare despairingly. “I think she wants to kill me, Julia!”